history of united states from 1815 to 1877. we taught that together for a quarter century. and i have many, many fond memories of all those seminars mostly about the wonderful students who are in there. extraordinary students in there including who is back there. but i have other memories, too, like the time when all of three students showed up. remember that one? there were three students in the class, two of whom were not princeton and we somehow managed to pull it off, though we filled more of the speaking time than either of us would have preferred. as graduate seminars debate as well as discussion i felt a tug for the 2011 us to highlight and defend different interpretations of that period from the end of the war of 1812 to the end of reconstruction. doing so is pretty easy after the missouri compromise. after the missouri compromise we were pretty much in agreement. easy. after that i found myself advanceing a kindlier view than

i actually had towards the emargining jacksonian democrats. jim said nicer things about the republicans and wiigs. we always agreed on john c. calhoun. he would be more than happy to point out for all their pretentiouses to majorityianism they were wiped out. for the infirmity might have reached with a national bank, internal improvements and slave holding texas still an independent republic. i would usually be reduced to mumbling something about george mcduffy and how all the really big southern slave holders were wiigs. for those in the c-span audience who don't know who he was, there are a dozen books for the people on the panel who can construct you about all that.

i suppose i could go to google, given the sites on google where mcduffy might appear, it might be a bad idea. in and around august, jim and i reconducted. the will month prof mont provis back together again. the year he was making his own while we were teaching that course, i learned a great deal about teaching from jim, crafting a long reading list as well as conducting a seminar, even when the students barely outnumbered us, finding right combination of respect, kindness and authority to encourage and yet also instruct vulnerable, yet also emphatic fledgling historians. mainly, though, he taught me, while he taught our students,

taught me vast amounts about civil war and reconstruction. i tried not to let on how much i was learning, but it was vast. i was also privileged enough to work with a master historian while he was in intellectual transition. i'm going to be restating things jim talked about. many ways historians can achieve greatness, even though so few of us can do so. they can claim a particular period or theme and write about it for their entire scholarly careers. they can skip about changing their focus and approach and sometimes changing their minds while illuminating different periods and pursuing different themes. woodward's friends richard hoffsteader comes to mind. but jim has left his stamp in all of these ways. \s he's associated with civil war

and reconstruction, the period he began his work in the late 1950s. moved well beyond that period as well takes his examination of racial potomlitics, for example into the 20th century. he began writing about political hits and never stopped but turned himself into a premier historian and did so during a post vietnam era during which much of the profession military history was to say the least unfashionable. he's written powerfully about presidents, lincoln above all but also about common soldiers, union and confederate including black troops fighting in the northern cause just at the point when that cause became exclusively a revolution to extra paid american slavery through it all he achieved greatness i mentioned a few minutes ago and from which i learned a great deal and still do. i arrived in princeton 1979

three years after jim completed abolitionist legacy, the succor to the first book struggle for equality. the first book covered radical abolitionist through reconstruction's demise. second concerned itself with racial egalitarianism with frederick douglass played itself out during the long fierce reaction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. along with the negro civil war, these were landmark books that helped rescue the abolitionists from the intense problem they suffered with professional historians in the 1960s. there are books, i believe, that cannot be fully understood outside of the context they were written, more sympathetic to the agitaterings than those in hour. agitators who thought president lincoln moved too slowly and who, as wendell phillips wrote, won't be flattered. can only be frightened and bullied into the right policy. to simplify drastically, one can

practically hear in the background complaints of the nonviolent snick, even dr. martin luther king about the slowness of martin luther king and moderates. when i arrived at princeton and years working together he was working on his books. he was working toward what jim referred to, jim oakes referred to as the broader understanding of the politics of the war. part of that understanding involved a new appreciation of how fully military history, which figures much less strikingly in jim's earlier works than it has in the later ones, how thoroughly military history enmeasured including abolitionists. but it also involved an enhanced appreciation of lincoln's enormous political skills deep

ma hatred of slavery. they did did not pull them his way, he did not compromise bedrock principles, manipulated abolitionists, held the union together so slavery could be abolished. two quick points i want to make about this all this. some repeats what jim had to say. there was a way in which the study of the abolitionist, the retrieval of their reputation was too embedded in the civil rights movement era. it was a good corrective but kind of went overboard. the search began for the most dedicated adherence to racial -- quality you could find, end up with a small group, everybody else too moderate, weak-kneed, not enough.

it's difficult to understand what the civil war was about, why it came to be. it was fundamentally a war about slavery. we also have to look at lincoln anew because lincoln looks agents weak-kneed. we forget abraham lincoln hated slavery every bit as much as frederick douglass did. i know i'm going to get cards and letters for that. he also loved the constitution of the united states. he did not want to destroy one by destroying the other. and he continued along those lines with the idea that, in fact, by halting slavery's demise, spread, he would truly be hastening his demise. one forget aside from haiti, gradual emancipation was the norm for emancipation in the 19th century. that's what people looked at. they thought that's exactly what

they were doing and would not compromise about that one bit. at least lincoln and his republican party would not do so. this is an anti-slavery legacy which is deeply, deeply important and i think has been kind of shoved aside to the extent to which only the most what jim calls the purist idea of the radicalism of equality comes into play as the only worthy one. jim recognized something about this or has recognized something about this transition in his own work. lookinging back to 1994 he observed had lincoln done what abolitionists demanded when they demanded it, there would have been no union victory and no amendments to the constitution to free the slaves and grant them equal rights for which the abolitionists fought. without slighting the abolitionists contributions he can see more clearly the potentially das terrous

drawbacks of their political naivete, the engines of social justice let alone common people including slaves, mcpherson reminded us, in effect, it takes a person and his party to get things done. the national crisis over slavery, took a president with the supreme political deftness as well as principles of abraham lincoln. i'll leave it to jim to tell me if i'm right about any of this. if so how he thinks his thinking has evolved over the years. so simple the day from the second reconstruction and advent of conservative politics in the 1980s was entirely responsible although imagine they were relevant. what i can say for myself was that listening to jim, as well as reading his work, had no small effect on the ways i thought about american democracy and other historians did as well, how i put in a later book

of my own political leaders did not create democracy out of thin air so the masses of americans did not force their way into the corridors of power. it took political leaders of the caliber of jefferson and lincoln. now, of course right here jim will always remind me that the lincoln we both admire was a wiig and not a jackson iian, ju as i will be quick to remind him of the less savory things he did when he was a wiig. we admire him not because he was a wiig but a republican, a political horse of a different color. how it was nets garrisonians nor wigs but they had broken with both political parties including same ex-president martin van buren who lincoln some years

earlier as a wig, denounced and paved the way for republicans. history is argument without end but speaking personally as well as plofl rofessionally some of most profound historians are utterly unimaginable without the fortitude and supple intelligence of jim mcpherson. for that blessing we are all enormously grateful. >> joe holds a distinguish chair at university of north carolina, chapel hill. his most recent work was a study of lee's army, i highly recommend. i think he is the premier military historian of this era. so joe, with that, thank you.

good morning. i want to thank the audience for coming out here sunday morning to honor my friend jim mcpherson and i want to thank the american historical association and vernon burton for an opportunity to pay tribute to my friend jim mcpherson. for those of you who don't know jim, he's a very humble man. i was thinking about this, jim, it could be worse. pat could have provided to katherine clinton that photograph of you and me wearing skirts in israel. i could just see the title, jim mcpherson, cross dresser. so in that vein, i've sbiltsed my talk, jim mcpherson, closet military historian. although jim began his career as an abolitionist historian, his greatest contributions, i think, are to the field of military history. not that his early career was

fraught with failure, mind you, it did get him tenure at princeton but is in the area of military history that he's made the most lasting contributions. so let me make a few points about some of his scholarship. first of all, "battle cry of freedom" 25 years later it is still the single best volume on the civil war. bar none, no competition. it's an extraordinary exploration into politic, military, diplomatic, cultural, social, racial history. it's an incredible achievement. jim told me he was awful in math. if you ever look at the sections on economics and financing the war, they are absolutely phenomenal. it's a truly extraordinary achievement. i want to focus on two issues that jim raises in "battle decree of freedom" he perceives recession as counter-revolution

as defined by maker. a movement before the revolution. jim perceives the revolution being the inauguration of abraham lincoln and rise to power of republican party. so it's a kind of preemptive first strike. jim places the american civil war in a global context, something historians have previously been reluctant to do. instead they like to overemphasize american exceptionlism but this global context is a wonderful addition to the field. second jim introduces the concept of contingency to challenge existing interpretations about why the north won and why the south lost and also to buttress his own assessment of why the north won and why the south lost. jim believes it was ordained, it

could have gone differently. four federal junk turs events went in favor and that enabled them to win the war. since then others applied to historical events and my friend has taken contingency and taken into a concept he refers to as deep contingency discussing layers of consequences to contingency. but the bottom line is concept of contingency helps us understand human elements of war how nothing in life is certain. the second is jim's exploration of soldier's motivations. here i'm referring to two books. the subject was tackled to some degree but jim approached it with vastly greater system

attic, systemization, first in what they fought for and second in cause of comrades, jim chose letters and diaries from a sample of 1,000 soldiers who largely reflected the demographic background of civil war soldiers. in the course of the book jim drawings on john lynd's analysis of combat motivation in armies. he proposes and jim embrace is, initial motivation, sustaining motivation and combat motivation. now more than a decade and a half old, these two volumes had the most balanced civil war motivations that exist today. now the third logical study to tackle is tried by war, which is

jim's book on abraham lincoln's commander in chief and vastly exceeds the previous standard work by t. harry lincoln and his generals. with limitations on time i'd rather talk about, and it is, of course, the standard in chief but what i'd rather talk about is a relatively obscure essay jim wrote. it was published in a slender volume called "is blood thicker than water?" the essay entitled ethnic versus civil nationalism in american civil war. in it jim traces the origins of southerners perceptions that they were a distinct race from northerners. he skillfully demonstrates that the argument is sheer myth, devoid of substantiation. but he does go on to argue the significance of the perception. southerners use that distinct ethnic makeup to demolish any ties with the old union and its

institutions that reluctant secessionists might have. he also notes because southerners believe they were fighting a distinct and inferior race, that spirit of ethnic nationalism enabled them to depict federals as barberous invaders, a lower form of human being and therefore reduced the angst they may have felt slaying thousands upon thousands of their former countrymen. thus it became a factor in the level of brutality that the warren gendered. i don't know if jim would consider himself a military historian but, in fact, in my opinion he is one. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> and now i guess i should introduce jim mcpherson.

>> i think i need to begin by explaining joe's remark about wearing skirts. that can't be left just hanging in the air. joe and i and thavolia were part of a group of americans who traveled to jerusalem last may and june to participate in a conference, international conference of scholars on civil wars, especially american civil wars, but the other civil wars in comparative context. during the course of it, our host gave us tours of israel and jerusalem. one day we walked to the top of temple mount, holy site for all three major religions of the crossroads of middle east and israel, judaism, christianity

and islam. joe and i were wearing bermuda shorts on that rather hot day. when we got to the top we were required to cover our legs. so we had to rent skirts as a consequence there were several photographs. joe and i think that probably this will be on the jacket of our next book. let me take this opportunity to thank all members of the panel who have been friends of mine as well as in some cases former students for many years, even decades. i am most appreciative of the work they have done to put together the volume, the struggle for equality for essays in my other than but also to organize this conference. especially i'm grateful to vernon who i think almost single handedly with many hours of

effort put together the pieces of the conference and pieces of the book. also jerry sitting here in the front row who was an essential part of that process as well. i was reminded by some of these talks of things that i had forgotten or never known. i had not really understood that i was the bob hope of the civil war. i had forgotten that review of the georgia historical quarterly thavolia cited in my first book. i do remember all the tours of gettysburg that i had given for undergraduate and graduate students at princeton and alumni over the years including the first one judith hunter went on when we walked the climax of the battle, pettigrew assault and

judith and her friend turned to each other and said that by this point halfway through we would both be dead. her friend said, i think that's the point. that really brings up another point, which is i have learned as much from my students and colleagues, including all these people on the panel as they have learned from me. that's one example, probably an odd example, of having learned something of great importance to me. when i've done tours of battle fields and especially gettysburg, and in particular that climatic moment of the battle of gettysburg, people i've taken on those tours starting with princeton graduate students and undergraduate students back in the 1980s, have stood on the edge of the woods there looking across the nearly

mile of open ground against cemetery ridge that the confederate soldiers were being asked to attack on that fateful afternoon july 30, 1863 and they have asked me how could anybody walk forward into what they knew was going to be a hail of led and iron with their chances coming out of it pretty slim. that question lingered in my mind over those tours and was really the origin of the book joe talked about in his presentation for cause and comrades. the study of combat -- of the motivation sustaining and combat of civil war soldiers. that was a question i was asked repeatedly giving battlefield tours there are many other

examples, questions by students or comments by colleagues on questions i've raised have motivated the kinds of studies that i've done every since graduate school when, of course, all of you probably in this audience have had the same experience. in graduate school you learned as much from your fellow graduate students as you do from either of the books you've read. that was certainly true of me back in my graduate school experience at johns hopkins from 1958 to 1962. one of my fellow students from those days, charles dew is in the audience. i learned a great deal from him, david fisher, also remained a lifelong friend since those days in graduate school. so beginning with that experience a half a century ago,

more than half a century ago right on down to the present, i've learned as much from colleagues and fellow students and students as i ever have taught them, i think. let me just briefly comment on what has been the trajectory of my career as a historian. almost all of the presenters this morning have made some observations about that. i want to just summarize that very briefly before we open this up to questions from the audience. i went to graduate school without really having a very clear idea of what i would wind up writing a dissertation about and making a career of.

this was during the early years of the civil rights movement. as you've heard these were the years woodward labeled the second reconstruction of the south. that was a focus of the graduate seminars, and much of the reading that we did in the late '50s and into the early '60s. i did two of my three graduate research papers during the first two years at johns hopkins on reconstruction. one of them was a study of alabama during a key part of the reconstruction period in that. the research for that was done mostly in the library of congress or johns hopkins library, not in alabama itself. woodward encouraged me to expand that into a dissertation. this was a time when -- it was a fairly exciting time when not

only students at woodward but others were looking at the possibility of revising the dunning interpretation of reconstruction. many of the studies of reconstruction in individual southern states had been done by the students of william archibald dunning back in the early part of the 20th century at columbia university. woodward would have been very happy for me to undertake a study of alabama during reconstruction. i began outlining what i might do with that. but at the same time two other things were going on. one was, of course, the sit-ins in greensboro, north carolina starting in 1960. the spillover in baltimore, which was a border state city at the time. the schools had been integrated under the leadership of david

fisher's father, who was the superintendent of the baltimore school system, but many other facilities in baltimore and other parts of maryland were still segregated. this still was the jim crow era, although the end of the jim crow era. of course the civil rights movement had generated a lot of hostility and violence in the south especially in 1961 during freedom riders going through alabama and mississippi. i began to think twice about whether i wanted to go down and spend six months or a year in alabama county court houses and the state archives driving around the state with a car with a northern license plate during those years. but more important in the decision, a fairly important decision i made was the context of the civil rights movement with northern activists, black and white traveling